


Night Terrors

by Johnny_Law



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 00:57:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7198919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johnny_Law/pseuds/Johnny_Law
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiro suffers in the night as his past continues to haunt him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Terrors

The dark chamber. It was always the dark chamber. He couldn’t tell precisely how big it was, the shadows stretched on, thick and deep to every side. All he knew was that there was ground, damp stone that they dragged him across. Whether there was a roof or there were walls he couldn’t say. It was all just black. 

Black and cold, always cold. 

The air was heavy with a stagnant chill that clung to his chest, his arms, his face. His back felt like it burned from the cold metal table he was strapped on. He was bound by wrists and ankles, metal clasps that he couldn’t break, that burned the skin around his wrists, around his ankles, from their cold grip.

He couldn’t see them, but he knew things stirred in the dark, moving past on foul errands. People, monsters? There wasn’t much difference in this place. Had there ever been a difference? Not that he could remember any more.

If he couldn’t see he could smell. Chemical smells, battery acid and a stench like human vomit, bile and poison. A smell that would come in and out as they came and went, carried in glass vials by her helpers.

And there was her. Always her. The only things he could see, even then it was only a sliver, was her white hair brilliant in the dark and the occasional flash of her fanged teeth in the crack of her lizard smile.

“Champion,” she cooed, “Champion they call you. Champion you shall be.” Her finger, dark in the darkness, brushed against the bare skin of his chest. He couldn’t see it, only feel it trace a line across him. “We shall make you strong. Stronger than you ever thought you could be. The strongest.”

No. He thought the word but couldn’t speak. He tried to fight his bonds but couldn’t move, even as he felt his muscles strain, his chest swell, they couldn’t move. His chest heaved against her touch, which turned from a trail of her finger brushing his skin, to the flat of her palm against his chest. Her voice came up against his ear, her breath ruffling his hair, the smell of her breath like poisoned cloves up his nostrils.

“Yes,” she said, “You will be my champion. It is fated to be so.”

Her other hand touched him on his cheek, and he felt her weight press against his chest, as a veil of silver-white hair fell from under her dark hood, fanged smile stretched in delight. Her weight was nothing but it pressed him down, bore him down, pinned him against the metal table so that it was like he was being held against a hot plate, the burn an agony across his back but his voice wouldn’t come from his throat to protest, to give voice to the burning pain, to the horror that held his heart.

He could only lay there, straining in the dark, mind reeling. One word repeated through his mind. No, no, no!

“All resist,” she said, that stink of poisoned cloves always on her breath, “And all break. You will break too, champion, and we will make you stronger still. We will make you ours.” He felt bile rise in his throat. And then the laugh she made, the laugh that stretched out into every dark corner of the impossible black chamber, that filled it with its ringing, a mocking bell that rang on forever. The laugh that followed him.

Forever in the dark.  
-

Allura had been walking to the kitchens when she had heard it, traipsing down the hall for a midnight snack. A habit of hers since she was a child, though she no longer had a father to chide her for it. She went on slippered feet, doing her best not be heard, when a sound like a choking sob came from behind a door. It made her ear twitch. It had been so soft she thought for a second she had imagined it.

She paused before a door left slightly ajar, eyeing it up and down.

‘This is Shiro’s room’ she thought as she stood in the hallway, hand raised up before her. She looked at the crack in the door. Had she truly heard something? Perhaps not. Perhaps she really had imagined it. She turned, to continue her sojourn to the kitchen. But as she was about to walk on she heard it again, a sob. It made her jerk back a step, look back to the door.

She felt a pulse in her neck and a nervous flutter in her chest.

With care she slowly opened the door wider, just enough for her to slip through.

“Shiro?” she kept her voice soft.

It was dark, his lights were off. She squinted into the gloom. The bed was in disarray, the sheets lay in twisted knots spilling onto the floor. He lay panting on the bed, eyes closed, sweating. With slippered feet she stepped in.

“Shiro?” her voice a little louder, the pulse in her neck quickening, her chest squeezed by a vice.

She shouldn’t be here. She was intruding.

The groan he made ended in a sob, his arm came up to cover his face. His leg kicked out. 

“Are you awake?” but she knew he wasn’t as she crossed the floor, stepping over the twisted blankets strewn across the floor. He slept without a shirt, and his broad chest ran with sweat. His chest rose with a choking sound, his face glistened with sweat, pale and pinched. He looked like he had a fever, as if he were in the grip of a terrible sickness.

The muscles of his arms and belly twitched, fingers twisting up. His lip pulled back as he gave another night sound, a little choked noise. The scar across his nose looked raw and ugly on that pale, sweating face.

She swallowed, touched the throbbing pulse in her neck as if she might stop it while looking down upon the twitching paladin.

“Shiro,” she bent across him, knee up on the bed. Her hair fell down across her face, her neck. It brushed his chin. “Shiro?”

His eyes snapped open, pupils small, teeth bared, face twisted in pain and rage. Her heart leapt into her throat but before more than a yelp could escape her mouth he thundered upward snarling. His metal hand grabbed her around the neck, squeezing hard on her throat. She grabbed it with both hands. The metal fingers squeezed, they threatened to crush. They threatened to kill.

Her head grew dizzy, she couldn’t pry his grip loose. His eyes were blinded with unthinking rage. This was not her paladin. This was not him.

“S-Shiro,” she choked his name through that crushing grip.

A blink and his pupils widened. The fury went and was replaced with shock, then with a sudden realization, horror. He released his grip and she collapsed down upon him, panting. Allura grabbed at her throat, trying not to retch.

He drew out from under her, drew back against the wall so that he was sitting upright. Horror and disgust was written all over his face. “Allura,” he said, tears standing in his eyes. She lay at his feet, rubbing at her throat. He hadn’t crushed her throat, but it had been close, and it burned with pain.

She looked up at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were on the floor, but he wasn’t looking at that either. He wasn’t looking at anything. Tears ran down his face, though his face itself was blank. Hollow.

“What happened?” she asked through her burning throat, drawing up onto the bed fully, “You were having a nightmare.” She skirted closer toward him and he pressed back by animal instinct, looking like a cornered, frightened animal. His broad, muscled chest heaved.

“I don’t-” he touched his forehead with a metal finger, “I don’t remember. I never remember.”

She drew her knees up beneath her chin, hugging them, watching him.

“I’m sorry,” he said again in a hollow voice. He looked lost at sea, without hope. He didn’t look like the black paladin, bold and dashing. He didn’t look like Shiro. 

Her heart broke, seeing him like this. Seeing him so pale and frightened.

“Don’t be,” she ran her hand against the back of her neck, “It’s not your fault.” He wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t listening. His gaze was lost on the horror he had climbed out of, the mistake he had made. She reached over, put a hand on his knee. “Shiro,” her voice more forceful. He looked at her with broken eyes. “It’s not your fault. It isn’t. Believe me, please.” Her voice cracked. A stupid, silly tear started in the corner of her eye and she tried to draw it back.

“They broke me,” he said, hands folding open and shut in his lap, fingers twitching.

Her pulse quickened again, her heart thumped against her chest. “They hurt you,” she said, slipping her hand into his real one. The fingers ceased their twitching as her slim brown fingers slid between them. She held his eyes with hers. “They hurt you. They did not break you.”

The fingers closed around her hand. Squeezed. His grip was strong and warm. A little smile opened across his face, weak but clear. His eyes no longer seemed quite so haunted. A smile broke across her own even as a tear started trailing down her cheek. She reached up with her hand, smoothed back the white tuft of hair from his forehead, the skin cold and clammy to her touch. She brushed it back, then ran her fingers across his face, feeling the light stubble on his cheek.

“Allura,” he touched her stroking hand with smooth metal fingers, closed it over her hand to hold it against his cheek. His eyes were on her, they were warming. 

She felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“I won’t let them break you,” she said.

Her paladin smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Deleted an earlier version of this story. This version isn't substantially different, but I prefer the tweaks made.


End file.
